Antitrust judicial protection of people's livelihood and well-being
2024-09-13
The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has made important arrangements for anti-monopoly work. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China emphasized the need to "strengthen anti-monopoly and anti unfair competition". Antitrust judiciary is an important channel for the implementation of the Anti Monopoly Law, and also an important measure to implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee. The typical cases of anti-monopoly and anti unfair competition issued by the Supreme People's Court play an important role in promoting and guiding the unification of fair competition policies, helping to build a unified national market, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of competitors and consumers, and promoting high-quality economic development. In the case of "Cable Digital TV Interference Signal Service Public Enterprise" abusing its market dominant position, the second instance judgment defined bundling behavior without justifiable reasons and welfare improvements as monopolistic behavior based on the balance of technological development and free trading interests, and defined non renewal behavior that objectively cannot be performed but does not reduce the interests of the trading counterpart and consumers as legal behavior. This not only makes technological development accessible to the people and policy changes harmless to the people, but also avoids enterprises with market dominant positions from unreasonably seizing market dividends. It has a demonstrative significance for the reasonable identification of bundling behavior and refusal to trade behavior under anti-monopoly regulations. The spirit of balancing interests and maximizing economic welfare reflected in this case, as well as the corresponding detailed considerations, can serve as a benchmark for judicial review of bundling and refusal of transactions. For example, in the horizontal monopoly agreement case of "rice noodle manufacturers", the second instance judgment started from the relationship between anti competitive effects and means, identifying several competing operators who fixed commodity prices and conspired to resist the monopolistic behavior of other competing operators. The complexity of this case lies in the fact that the accused monopolistic actor, through intricate contractual arrangements with peers and downstream operators, and through relevant preferential and breach penalty measures, cooperates and consolidates layer by layer to jointly resist other competitive operators from participating in relevant market competition. The second instance judgment conducted a detailed analysis of the accused monopolistic behavior, making the essence of excluding and restricting competition clear and distinguishable. The substantive thinking and livelihood concept reflected in this case have important guiding value for identifying horizontal monopoly agreements. In the determination of horizontal monopoly agreements, only by penetrating complex contractual relationships, accurately defining relevant markets and the accused monopolistic behavior, can unfair behavior that disrupts market competition order be discovered, and anti-monopoly regulatory measures can be reasonably determined. The common feature of the two typical cases mentioned above is that monopolistic behavior occurs in the field of people's livelihood. This is a microcosm of the people's courts strengthening anti-monopoly protection in the field of people's livelihood. The anti-monopoly justice in the field of people's livelihood is the focus of anti-monopoly work and a typical embodiment of implementing justice for the people. It reflects that the people's court adheres to the people-centered approach, closely focuses on people's livelihood, accurately applies fair competition laws and policies, and precisely implements anti-monopoly work. (New Press) (Author Fu Jicun, Associate Professor and Director of the Institute of Intellectual Property Law at China University of Political Science and Law)
Edit:Wangchen Responsible editor:Jia Jia
Source:http://rmfyb.chinacourt.org
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